New York Times Reviews Claudia Rankine's November

At the New York Times, Maya Phillips writes about November, Phillip Youmans and Claudia Rankine's film adaptation of Rankine's play Help, which was commissioned by The Shed pre-pandemic and is now available to watch on-demand until November 7 via The Shed's website. "The script reflects on exchanges Rankine has had with white men in airports and on planes, alongside her typically cerebral musings on race relations and what she has termed the 'racial imaginary,' a classroom-ready phrase describing the tension between one’s imagined notions of race — whether stereotyped or willfully ignored — and the reality," writes Phillips. More: 

Zora Howard, Tiffany Rachelle Stewart, Crystal Dickinson, April Matthis and Melanie Nicholls-King trade off parts of the lengthy monologue, which is paired with visual metaphors that recall Rankine’s fondness for hybridity, as expressed in her books “Citizen” and “Just Us.” Other performers — including a white man, a stand-in for the kind of white masculinity Rankine describes — recur throughout, playing basketball at an outside court, laughing at a party or swimming in a public pool.

Just a few weeks ago, I reviewed “Just Us,” a work that oftentimes feels too distant and meditative, as though stuck in the realm of race theory rather than the real world. “November” extracts the most striking language from its sibling and points it like a weapon at a racist America. “How many times have I been told not to be angry about my own murder?” one narrator asks. It’s one of many salient questions that Rankine offers in a tone both prodding and demanding of action.

Continue reading at the New York Times.